The Beginnings of the Lasts

Leon got in hot water by not wanting to go where I wanted to after he got off the bus yesterday afternoon.  If you have a meltdown, you get to sit on the steps until you calm the heck down.

Meri sat with him after a bit when he just wasn't calming down much and happened to mention that we wanted to go an early dinner together. She wanted to go to because she was going to be moving out soon.  Not entirely true, but it got him to put things in perspective.  So then she cried with him.

Once they'd gotten their composure and had some alone time on the drive, they met me at Ryan's pub for an early supper.  As luck would have it, Ryan was just going on break as we arrived and he ate with us.  Leon hadn't seen him since Thursday.  Then Meri took off to the school to prepare for her last concert and Leon and I shopped a bit for some summer clothes.  It'll be 80 degrees today! WOOHOO!!!  And since he'd splooged mustard all down his current clothes at dinner, we stopped at a rest area and he changed into his new duds.

 Then we high tailed it to the school too.  They had an art show in the cafeteria displaying artwork from kindergarten through 12th grade.  Leon had two things!  Here they are.

The concert went well.  Meri wasn't very proud of a bulk of the concert band stuff, but whatever...  I wanted to see her in concert one last time.  Wouldn't miss it!  I THINK they perform as a concert band again tomorrow morning and in a marching band on Friday.  Working it into my schedule now...

Leon was a booger and had to go use the restroom three times during the concert...  REALLY?!!!  

The concert band played a medley from Star Wars and Leon recognized the Emperial March so they can't have been ALL that bad!  Plus the director used a lightsaber to direct the last Star Wars theme.  Too cool!  Meri was in charge of it until he needed it.

The seniors in Jazz band all wore the glitzy bowties and belt thingys.  Pretty snazzy!  

And there were only the 4 girls that were seniors!  I thought there were more.

 

And the biggest surprise of the evening (Meri insists she told us and she probably did) was that Meri FINALLY did a solo in a new Jazz tune they did!  It was so great!!!  First and last jazz solo...

 I've got it recorded and will get it uploaded to Youtube some time soon.

 

LAST jazz performance...

 

and there were tears...

Leon climbed up on stage and then accompanied Meri behind the scenes for a bit.  

 

 

We went out for ice cream. 

And got home around 10.

 I let Leon sleep in a little and drove him to school this morning rather than getting on the bus at a way early time.  

 

Poor kid.  He got his backpack stuck in the door on his way in... 

 It's going to be a rough day for him...

It's going to be harder for him when Meri isn't around to have fun with too...

As I Wish... and other weekend activities

On Friday night, as soon as I got off work, Meri picked me up with a few empty suitcases and we drove to one of her friend's house out in the county.  Meri is an awesome photographer and had been asked to take LinZ's senior pics.  The suitcases were for one of the poses.  We weren't running away.

LinZ sounds like a rapper...  But that's just her nickname.  Meri was studying Alliteration in middle school and Robb came up with this example.

A Little LinZ goes a Long way.

and she really, really does...

I took a few shots of the photography session in progress and hope I can get copies of the rest to show you when Meri is done editing them.

My favorite though, so far, is the one we took on a deserted gravel road.  I peeled out up and down the road, kicking up as much dust as possible while Meri hustled Linz into the dust and took pics before the dust settled or blew away.  In black and while, it's going to look fantastic!

I hope.

We spent two hours in several different locations, taking pics of Linz.   Those two girls know each other so well, that all Meri had to do to get her to smile and laugh was to yell SMILE!!!!  

and she'd crack up.

Sorry it's so dark!  Meri climbed up on the tall monkey bars and Linz was on the lower one.  

It made a great shot!

Meri appreciated my help and suggestions on photo scenarios, so I've been asked to join her on her next senior pic session for Perla this coming week.

We got home around 8 and Meri got ready to take off for a late movie with a friend.  Robb asked if I'd made pizza before I left and I hadn't...  So I said I'd open a can of soup.  As soon as I opened it, I noticed a Papa John's pizza box on the table.  Hey - who bought pizza??  He had.  

The can of soup got stuck in the fridge and I had pizza instead.

Saturday - Robb and I attended Meri's (LAST in that particular town's) marching band performance in their parade.  It was almost an hour away and as we were walking from our car, a woman came up behind us and I jumped to the side and said excuse me.  It was a lady from my sewing group!  

Well, what are YOU doing here?!  We told her why we were there and she just lives a couple blocks away so she goes to the parade every year after a pancake breakfast.  YUM!  We'd already eaten or we'd have joined her.  She knows Meri well and we found out later that some strang woman waved and yelled to Meri as the band passed by her.  Um yeah,  it was probably Joanne.

Anyway, we sat on our usual street corner to watch.  Kids swooped in all around us collecting candy.  Parades are great if you have a small child to take candy from, but it's frowned on if that kid isn't your own.  Words to live by...  

So I tried to track down kettle korn with NO success!  Just bought some old regular popcorn and some Mexican chips and we settled in to sunburn with lots of snacks.  My toes look really dirty now, but they're actually just really tan... in stripes...

Meri's band sounded great and I really don't even know if they won the competition.  I'm going to assume so.  They're good.

That's Meri in the front on the clarinet.

Afterwards, we did a little grocery shopping, had a date lunch at Ryan's pub but he wasn't working.  

We didn't order this, but I asked if I could take a pic of the cheese platter that a neighboring table was enjoying to make Maddy jealous.  They were only too helpful and wanted to know her reaction.  All she replied was YUM...   

Then we came home and I found an ad on the local swap page that someone wanted scrap metal as well as anything wood or electrical.  And boy of boy, have I got some of that!!!  I spent two hours in the hot garage, moving things this way and that pulling things out into the driveway for this group to take.  A couple file cabinets, a couple sewing cabinets, numerous bed frames, a lawn mower, boards, two large printers, a dryer and several other things too many to mention.  The driveway was cluttered. 

We had agreed for a 6pm pickup time.  When I went inside to clean up my filthy filthy self, I let her know that the stuff was in the drive way at 5 and they could come at any time to pick it up but I'd like it to be gone by 6:30.  That appeared to tick her off.  It sounded like I was being pushy I guess...  So suddenly they could ONLY take scrap metal. ...  Then at 6pm asked if they could come Sunday night instead. ...  Really?  Robb and I had to move everything back into the garage.  SIGH...  JUST when I thought there was hope for getting one car into the garage before winter hits...   

The next night they didn't come either.  So I guess I'll post all this stuff on freecycle and see if anyone else wants it.  OR we'll have a bonfire.

So on Saturday night, we knew Meri was coming straight home after work and we hadn't had her all to ourselves forEVER!!!  She's always rushing off to do things with friends.  We figured we needed to get penciled into her friend list too...  So we had a super secret steak night in HER honor.  Out came the china, good glasses and cloth napkins from the wedding, folded JUST so...  

Actually just like this but without the ribbon.

We even used the blue/white table runner and a vase with her bridesmaid bouquet in it.

She felt so loved.  But she was exhausted and couldn't even stay up long enough for dessert!  Well, we didn't tell her about it, she'd already gone to bed.  Robb and I just drove up to Casey's on our own and got some soft serve ice cream.  BUT she'd felt honored and that's what mattered.

Well, that was Friday and Saturday.   And the weekend just kept going!!!!

I wish...

There Will Be Tears

 The first day of Leon's kindergarten year. 

The first day of Meri's Senior year.

I was up at the crack of dawn, sitting for 30 minutes at the wrong venue before I found out the mother's were setting up elsewhere.  So I dashed over there and got assigned drink pouring duty. And apparently the Tigger/Pooh waffle iron was just too cute to use...  I'm batting a zero so far.

BUT I got some good shots of Meri and her friends at the Senior breakfast and got to talk to a few moms that had kids the same ages as mine.

Then all the Seniors gathered outside the high school for the class picture.  I scanned the kid's faces looking for my Meri and didn't see her at all.  So I called her.  

She was inside with some friends taking pictures there...

She and Perla were wearing crowns.  Don't you have all DAY for that??

So with her almost in tears for missing the BIG pic of the year and me for having missed her being in it, I got this one.  

Anyone know how to photo shop them into the big one?  sigh...

Then I hightailed it over to the elementary school, a whole 3 blocks away and got to see Leon sitting with his classmates before they headed back to the kindergarten room.

I'm sitting at my desk now about to melt into tears of all kinds.  It's going to be a rough day.

Homecoming week!

It's homecoming week and you know what THAT means!  Goofy outfits for the kids every day!  Especially Seniors, because this is the last time EVER they can act goofy! 

(....)

Monday - Come as you are day!  Maddy went in sweats and a flower tee with her hair a mess.  Looks like she crawled right out of bed... which she did.  This day sure saved a lot of prep time in the morning!

 

Such lovely girls...

The girl 3rd from the right is the Homecoming queen!  She's a regular around these parts especially when  there are puppies at our house...

 Tuesday - Fictional Character day!  Maddy went as Jess from New Girl!  I thought it was funny when she said that everyone recognized her after she told them who she was.

Because you have to TELL them...

Wednesday - Royalty Day!  Mads wore her prom dress that we put our blood, sweat and tears into last spring, topping it off with a royal purple jacket.  She couldn't find a crown but had a lacy headband.  She REFUSED to wear our gold crown of thorns....  It would have been perfect!

 Thursday - Today is "ER" day.  You need to dress up with something that ends in ER or OR.  For example, Mother, Teacher, Dentister... You get the idea.  She chose Doctor.  As in Dr McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy.  Up until Tuesday night, she was going to be a grandmother and had all the clothes and jewelry ready for it.  Necklace with all the grandkids and their birthstones, etc...  Her grandma was having a ball getting it put together for her.  Then Maddy changed her mind.

She sent me the photo of the scrubs hat below over my lunch yesterday and asked that I whip up a couple for today. 

So after Bible study last night, I did.  It took all of 20 minutes and probably looks it.

 We have tons of scrubs that I bought from someone on a local Facebook swap page, because the girls wanted them to lounge around the house in.  No one has yet...  They sit in a heap.  But anyway, Mad pulled out the manly ones that didn't have hearts or frogs all over them.  Then last night she printed off two name tags.  One of her friends is doing this with her.  Maddy will be Dr. McDreamy and her friend will be Dr. McSteamy. 

 The above picture of the scrubs hat doesn't look that attractive laid out like that, but it did turn out pretty neat on.  Using one pair of blue pants, I made a wide band to go around the forehead back to an inch or so behind the ears.  Then made a big half circle casing and strung through part of the waist straps to tie it with.

From behind they'll look Amish, but from the front, they'll be very medicinal...

Can't wait to see everyone's pictures on FB later!  Then you can see what I mean!

Tomorrow is Spirit day because of the homecoming game tomorrow night.  Wow, these kids get creative!

Senioritis - Like A 13OSS

Today is the first day of school for my girls...  I have one who is a 7th grader (whom I will not get a 1st day of school picture of until AFTER school) and one *sob* who is a Senior!  

She can't get away from my wandering camera fast enough, I tell you!...  But she'll still pose if I point it her way.  And this is why she's going to an undisclosed college next year... 

 I helped with the Senior breakfast this morning and got up dang early.  11:30, 1:15 & then 5:09.  For various reasons... but the 5:09 wake up stuck...  I had to be at the hall by 7 with my cut up cantaloupe that wasn't cut up yet.  Got my morning chores and cantaloupe cutting done and headed over.

The breakfast went fast.  The only table available was right in front of the moms with cameras, so a LOT of the guys went out on the deck and ate with their backs to the cameras.  That table stayed empty...

On the backs of these Senior shirts are nicknames that each kid was either assigned or asked for.  Some were, Baby Legs, The New Kid, Al Pal, The Bus, Mr. HotPants, Mrs. HotPants, etc.  Mad's was Sleepy, which she is until she intakes 3 quarts of coffee each day.

It took me a LONG time to find my daughter in the crowd of kids during the group picture. 

 

I guess I was looking for a tow head.

 Back at the house then, I took an "Off To School" shot of my nieces who are headed back to college today.  They and their family stayed over last night and are moving into their dorm today.

And their brother, aka Justin Bieber lookalike, getting mobbed by the dogs.  They LOVE him!

With the amount of sleep I got last night, it's going to be a long day!

A Little Redundancy Never Hurt Anyone!

Went for a photo shoot of a photo shoot on Saturday!!!  Maddy got her senior pics done by the daughter of one of my college bffs and actually is a god-child of mine!

It was a hot day and lots of construction around town.  Hot tar smells awesome in the morning!  Actually it was afternoon...  but who's counting?

We started out at the library because it already has a stack of books statue right outside the door.  Maddy also brought one of her favorite books that she's read a bijillion times...  Little Women.

We bopped around downtown and she posed on a ferris wheel and in front of every urban edgy rustic wall or door that the photographer knew of.  Amanda did such a good job!

We drove around town to another area and Maddy changed in the car quickly.  If there are any traffic cams on these roads, we gave them a good show!  Especially when we waited for no traffic then dashed out into the street for this one...

After those pics, we stopped for some cooling down brain freezes with Amanda's mom and my dear friend, Kshotz!  

Visited for a while and then back to work!

Stopped in a meadow with lovely yellow flowers and got lots of great shots!

The process

The result!

 

The process...

 

The result!

 

Then off to a park for some more outdoorsy, nature photos.  and of course an ice cream truck!  The driver was so kind and asked if he could be in one of her pictures.  SUURRRRE!

There were a couple just goofy pics.  Because, Hello!?!...  That's who we are..

 

And then a few to show who we REALLY are.  I'm really loving this one!

So far we've gotten to admire various selections on Amanda's FB page and so far I'm very impressed!  

We will eventually get a cd with all the photos on them and I'm wondering how we're ever going to decide!!!

Will this be the girl with 2500 (25 various poses with 100 each) wallets to hand out??

Eh... take 4!  A little duplication won't hurt!